Writing the Overeating Dialogues with Kirsty and Abbi has been such laughter filled, challenging and creative process and together, we've done it, we now have a fully formed, well rounded, rather lovely script. Well, they have written it and we've tried our hardest to squeeze in a song or a rap, or a little dance but sadly (and sensibly) we're sticking with dialogue!
Three generous, 'up for a laugh and a new experience' women have joined our little company and will be stepping up on stage on the 3rd November as actors. We would love a couple more women to join us.
Right now I feel scared and excited in equal measure. If I listen to my scornful, know it all of a gremlin I imagine making a fool of myself, looking like an amateur, getting it wrong, in public, in front of my friends, my family and Beyond Chocolaters. I tell myself that I am both crazy and arrogant to think we can pull it off with panache. I start to wish I'd never had the idea... Of course, my know it all gremlin would say that... Typical. Luckily I don't have to listen to that bollocks. I tell it to bog off and when I've shut it up, I remind myself that what I (and the others) am doing is brave and daring thing. That by speaking up and taking a risk, we may well empower countless others to do the same, I remind myself that I am willing to look a fool when it comes to my passions and my beliefs. I am prepared to go out on a limb, risk criticism and disdain and that there is no shame in getting it wrong, in being imperfect, nothing to be gained for protecting myself from failure. I am willing to take the risk and to have fun and enjoy myself in the process. It's a bit like engaging in an extreme sport. You wouldn't catch me dead bungee jumping but I imagine that the thrill and the fear I would feel would be something akin to what I'm experiencing now. We're taking a huge leap of faith and I am confident that it will be exhilarating.
Have I put you off yet? Oops! That wasn't supposed to be the point of this post at all...
Fancy joining us? Go on, you know you want to. This is our final call! It will be fun and challenging and such an achievement. I am still pinching myself to believe that we are really doing this. That we have taken an idea, a dream, a vision, and with the help and support of Abbi and Kirsty and the Beyond Chocolate community we are turning it into a reality.
There won't be pages and pages of lines to learn. The roles are all pretty much equal, no main parts and small ones and none of them are very onerous or difficult. There are even some roles with no lines at all. The commitment we'd need from you is to be available all day and evening on 3rd November for the performances and then on the following dates for rehearsals in London:
Tues 18, 25 Sept, 2, 9,16, 23 Oct, 7-10pm and all day on 27 Oct for tech and dress rehearsals 11am - 6pm
Some of the rehearsals will be in NW3 and some in W6 - we'll be arranging lifts to and from tube stations and proving dinner and cake :)
Get in touch with me as soon as possible if you'd like to take part or if you want to find out more. sophie[at]beyondchocolate.co.uk
Showing posts with label Beyond Temptation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beyond Temptation. Show all posts
Monday, 23 July 2012
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Beyond Chocolate on Kindle
We are delighted to announce that Beyond Chocolate is now available on Kindle. Yay!! You can pre-order it from today and it will be on sale from 12th July 2012.
I swore blind that I wouldn't ever have a Kindle. I love books. Real books. Paper and ink and colourful book covers. I love the smell of a real book, the feel of it, I love everything about real, live books.
It was my birthday last week and my gift, from my husband, was a Kindle. I asked for it, tentatively, preparing to hate it. Well, not so. I LOVE it. More than that, right now I am in love with it. We went on holiday for a week and it was amazing to be able to take several books with me, and they all fitted into my handbag. Usually I spend ages deliberating which ones to take. This time I could take them all. I love the feel of it. I love how light it is. I love how easy it is to hold, how I can prop it up against the side of my bedside table to read at night - hands free. I love the Gelaskins cover that makes it look beautiful and means I don't pick up my son's by mistake. It really is wonderful. And honestly, I'm not on comission!
Beyond Temptation will be available on Kindle too, as soon as it's released on 6th September.
I am offically no longer a Luddite.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Willpower, is that what we need to stop overeating?
Willpower - I just looked it up in my online dictionary and here’s what it says “Control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses : a stupendous effort of will.”
What’s wrong with that? Why would it not be helpful to deliberately make an effort to restrain an impulse that we have decided is ultimately not good for us? Sounds like exactly what we need by the bucket load if we want to stop overeating. Well, I think not and I think the reason lies with the word stupendous. More on that in a moment.
Have you ever heard the expression “she has an iron will”? What image does that metaphor conjure up in your mind? If I imagine I can see before me a woman with an iron will, I see someone strong, braced, rigid, eyes fixed, jaw set, muscles tense and tight, her breathing is shallow, almost imperceptible. She may even have her fists clenched. She’s making herself impenetrable, immovable, so solid nothing will push her off course, she's ready for a fight if necessary…. Are you willing to humour me for a moment? Stand up and try that posture. Imagine yourself summoning all the will you have while you stand in that posture. I imagine that if you really put stupendous effort into it you’d resist just about anything right now. If you stayed as focused as this, if you maintained this stance, your will truly would be as iron, able to withstand almost anything it comes up against. Powerful. Strong. ‘NO’ is on the tip of your tongue. Nothing will topple you.
How do you feel? What are you aware of in your body? What are you thinking? How much effort does it take to stay this strong and focused? How long do you think you could sustain this posture? Could you stay like this all day? All week? All your life? So, isn’t this ability to summon our will and create a body that knows how to say no, stay solid and unmovable, resist... a good thing? Isn't learning how to use our willpower the answer. Then we could summon the power of our will whenever we needed it and, with stupendous effort, to say NO to overeating?
The way I see it is this. Making a stupendous effort, which doesn’t always feel like it’s all that hard at first, is ultimately unsustainable. I’ve been reading a fascinating book about habits. I was very interested to read that scientists have discovered that willpower is not infinite. We don't have a never ending source of willpower. Even in the course of one day the more willpower we exert, the harder it becomes to keep drawing on it and by the end of the day we are very likely to have run out. And I was surprised at just how many things in a day we draw on our willpower to manage. Just how many things in my day I do, even though I don't really want to; getting up early with my alarm (and resisting the desire to turn over and go back to sleep), making packed lunches for the kids (honestly, I'd really rather not, it would be so much easier to pay for school dinners) cleaning the loo (resisting the urge to turn a blind eye to the grime), supermarket shopping (hate it), sitting in traffic jams (holding back the desire to scream at every red traffic light), taking the rubbish out (resisting the whisper to just walk past and ignore it), balancing my accounts (resisting the urge to distract myself with yet another cup of tea), clearing my inbox of junk mail (rather than giving in to the desire to shut my laptop and do something far more interesting) taking myself to the dentist (when every bone in my body wants to stay away). I could go on and on. These are all necessary tasks which I am responsible for and which I choose to do. And, they require me to draw on the power of my will to say yes to, over and over again, even when I sometimes want to say no. The things which might be easy enough to do or resist at the beginning of the day and the tasks that require our focus and attention, become far, far harder by the end of the day. We draw on the power of our will many times in the day to do things we don’t want to do or to resist the things we are drawn to and temped by… not just overeating. We may not realise it as they are small, seemingly insignificant things sometimes and each one in itself may not require stupendous effort. Just a bit of effort. And it all adds up. So is it any surprise that by the time we get home after work, or the children are finally tucked up in bed, we simply do not have the energy it takes to stay in that effortful posture? Is it really any surprise that, particularly at the end of the day, the willpower to say no to chocolate or cake or pasta or whatever has quite simply run out? Is it really that surprising that we draw on every ounce of willpower to do what we have to do for others, to be there, show up, perform, and that there's little of that left when it comes to taking care of ourselves and saying no to overeating, whatever the time of day? Who are we letting down but ourselves when we give ourselves a moment of respite from working so hard? Add to that the very fact that eating something nice feels like the one thing we are actually giving ourselves, a treat, a break and is it any wonder that we just don't have the energy to summon more willpower to resist? Resistance is futile. Even if we try, we are almost guaranteed to give in, it's just a matter of time.
The way to stop overeating is not to use willpower. If we truly want to stop overeating, the way to do it is this: decide that we want to stop. That's the single most important step; to make that decision and set our intention. Then, make sure we have support in place, whatever works for us. It could be a person or people to talk to, books to read, a forum to post on... Then, find out as much as we can about the behaviour we want to change, becoming curious about why, when and how we overeat, so that we understand the triggers, cues and motivations and we can see what we get out of the behaviour and how it helps us cope. Then, we can plan to change those overeating behaviours one small step at a time, and each time be willing to tune in and stay present to whatever we are experiencing in the moment rather than ignoring ourselves and using willpower. Stopping involves taking ourselves gently by the hand and saying no to eating, not with superhuman, stupendous effort but by learning to acknowledge and experience how we are feeling, what we are thinking and recognising our body talk. Being able to stop overeating means learning how to soothe away the discomfort, the pain, the agitation... Stopping involves identifying what we are truly hungry for and allowing ourselves to have that. Or acknowledging what it's like when we can't or don't know how to let ourselves have what we truly want. Changing our overeating behaviours and habits does indeed require effort and commitment but if it feels like you have to make stupendous effort, your are pushing too hard and you are likely to run out of steam and sabotage your efforts. If you have to draw on willpower you are fighting a losing battle. You'll only manage it for so long and eventually, a few minutes, days or weeks later you'll relent and give in. It, is quite simply inevitable. Scientifically proven even.
Willpower: wonderful, useful, empowering, effective, in short bursts. I am very, very grateful for the power of my will. But not for stopping overeating. Gentleness, commitment, willingness, openness, presence, curiosity, sustained effort (the kind that involves stretching not tearing), these are the qualities to draw on if we want to stop overeating. It's very different from using willpower, which involves ignoring ourselves and our needs, shutting ourselves off from feeling. Rigidifying and fighting. Tuning-in is the opposite; it means paying attention to ourselves, acknowledging, feeling, softening, co-operating with ourselves. We can all do it, every one of us. The more we practice tuning-in, the easier it is to stop overeating. (A lot more on this in our new book - Beyond Temptation, out on Sept 6th 2012) My verdict; willpower, not helpful.
What’s wrong with that? Why would it not be helpful to deliberately make an effort to restrain an impulse that we have decided is ultimately not good for us? Sounds like exactly what we need by the bucket load if we want to stop overeating. Well, I think not and I think the reason lies with the word stupendous. More on that in a moment.
Have you ever heard the expression “she has an iron will”? What image does that metaphor conjure up in your mind? If I imagine I can see before me a woman with an iron will, I see someone strong, braced, rigid, eyes fixed, jaw set, muscles tense and tight, her breathing is shallow, almost imperceptible. She may even have her fists clenched. She’s making herself impenetrable, immovable, so solid nothing will push her off course, she's ready for a fight if necessary…. Are you willing to humour me for a moment? Stand up and try that posture. Imagine yourself summoning all the will you have while you stand in that posture. I imagine that if you really put stupendous effort into it you’d resist just about anything right now. If you stayed as focused as this, if you maintained this stance, your will truly would be as iron, able to withstand almost anything it comes up against. Powerful. Strong. ‘NO’ is on the tip of your tongue. Nothing will topple you.
How do you feel? What are you aware of in your body? What are you thinking? How much effort does it take to stay this strong and focused? How long do you think you could sustain this posture? Could you stay like this all day? All week? All your life? So, isn’t this ability to summon our will and create a body that knows how to say no, stay solid and unmovable, resist... a good thing? Isn't learning how to use our willpower the answer. Then we could summon the power of our will whenever we needed it and, with stupendous effort, to say NO to overeating?
The way I see it is this. Making a stupendous effort, which doesn’t always feel like it’s all that hard at first, is ultimately unsustainable. I’ve been reading a fascinating book about habits. I was very interested to read that scientists have discovered that willpower is not infinite. We don't have a never ending source of willpower. Even in the course of one day the more willpower we exert, the harder it becomes to keep drawing on it and by the end of the day we are very likely to have run out. And I was surprised at just how many things in a day we draw on our willpower to manage. Just how many things in my day I do, even though I don't really want to; getting up early with my alarm (and resisting the desire to turn over and go back to sleep), making packed lunches for the kids (honestly, I'd really rather not, it would be so much easier to pay for school dinners) cleaning the loo (resisting the urge to turn a blind eye to the grime), supermarket shopping (hate it), sitting in traffic jams (holding back the desire to scream at every red traffic light), taking the rubbish out (resisting the whisper to just walk past and ignore it), balancing my accounts (resisting the urge to distract myself with yet another cup of tea), clearing my inbox of junk mail (rather than giving in to the desire to shut my laptop and do something far more interesting) taking myself to the dentist (when every bone in my body wants to stay away). I could go on and on. These are all necessary tasks which I am responsible for and which I choose to do. And, they require me to draw on the power of my will to say yes to, over and over again, even when I sometimes want to say no. The things which might be easy enough to do or resist at the beginning of the day and the tasks that require our focus and attention, become far, far harder by the end of the day. We draw on the power of our will many times in the day to do things we don’t want to do or to resist the things we are drawn to and temped by… not just overeating. We may not realise it as they are small, seemingly insignificant things sometimes and each one in itself may not require stupendous effort. Just a bit of effort. And it all adds up. So is it any surprise that by the time we get home after work, or the children are finally tucked up in bed, we simply do not have the energy it takes to stay in that effortful posture? Is it really any surprise that, particularly at the end of the day, the willpower to say no to chocolate or cake or pasta or whatever has quite simply run out? Is it really that surprising that we draw on every ounce of willpower to do what we have to do for others, to be there, show up, perform, and that there's little of that left when it comes to taking care of ourselves and saying no to overeating, whatever the time of day? Who are we letting down but ourselves when we give ourselves a moment of respite from working so hard? Add to that the very fact that eating something nice feels like the one thing we are actually giving ourselves, a treat, a break and is it any wonder that we just don't have the energy to summon more willpower to resist? Resistance is futile. Even if we try, we are almost guaranteed to give in, it's just a matter of time.
The way to stop overeating is not to use willpower. If we truly want to stop overeating, the way to do it is this: decide that we want to stop. That's the single most important step; to make that decision and set our intention. Then, make sure we have support in place, whatever works for us. It could be a person or people to talk to, books to read, a forum to post on... Then, find out as much as we can about the behaviour we want to change, becoming curious about why, when and how we overeat, so that we understand the triggers, cues and motivations and we can see what we get out of the behaviour and how it helps us cope. Then, we can plan to change those overeating behaviours one small step at a time, and each time be willing to tune in and stay present to whatever we are experiencing in the moment rather than ignoring ourselves and using willpower. Stopping involves taking ourselves gently by the hand and saying no to eating, not with superhuman, stupendous effort but by learning to acknowledge and experience how we are feeling, what we are thinking and recognising our body talk. Being able to stop overeating means learning how to soothe away the discomfort, the pain, the agitation... Stopping involves identifying what we are truly hungry for and allowing ourselves to have that. Or acknowledging what it's like when we can't or don't know how to let ourselves have what we truly want. Changing our overeating behaviours and habits does indeed require effort and commitment but if it feels like you have to make stupendous effort, your are pushing too hard and you are likely to run out of steam and sabotage your efforts. If you have to draw on willpower you are fighting a losing battle. You'll only manage it for so long and eventually, a few minutes, days or weeks later you'll relent and give in. It, is quite simply inevitable. Scientifically proven even.
Willpower: wonderful, useful, empowering, effective, in short bursts. I am very, very grateful for the power of my will. But not for stopping overeating. Gentleness, commitment, willingness, openness, presence, curiosity, sustained effort (the kind that involves stretching not tearing), these are the qualities to draw on if we want to stop overeating. It's very different from using willpower, which involves ignoring ourselves and our needs, shutting ourselves off from feeling. Rigidifying and fighting. Tuning-in is the opposite; it means paying attention to ourselves, acknowledging, feeling, softening, co-operating with ourselves. We can all do it, every one of us. The more we practice tuning-in, the easier it is to stop overeating. (A lot more on this in our new book - Beyond Temptation, out on Sept 6th 2012) My verdict; willpower, not helpful.
Friday, 11 May 2012
Actors wanted!
We are looking for women who would like to join us, get up on stage and take part. You don't have to be a professional actor, if you have some experience of acting in any capacity, if you feel comfortable up on stage, if you truly enjoy performing, you are the woman we are looking for. There will be lines to learn but not endless pages or long scripts to memorise. There's a place for those who want to play a small part with just one or two lines or for those who are more gung-ho and want to take on more. It will most likely be challenging, scary, exciting and most importantly lots and lots of FUN!
We'll be giving two performances on Saturday 3rd November (tickets on sale soon), a matinee at 3pm and then an evening performance at 7.30pm. The theatre sits 60 people and there will be Beyond Chocolaters, journalists, family and friends in the audience. You'll need to be available, in London, for regular weekly rehearsals with Sophie, Audrey, Kirsty and Abby in September and October on the following dates:
Tues 18, 25 Sept, 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 Oct 7-10pm
Saturday 27 Oct 11am to 6pm
And of course on the day of the show - 3rd November, you'll need to be available from 10am until the end of the shows.
We have not yet finalised a location for the rehearsals but they will be in London, either central or north (probably in the Camden area).
If you'd like to be a part of this exciting production, please drop a line as soon as possible to sophie@beyondchocolate.co.uk or give us a call anytime on 07904125997
Thursday, 29 March 2012
The Overeating Monologues
Remember the Vagina Monologues? Well, we reckon it’s time for the The Overeating Monologues. Time for women to break the taboo and speak up. So, that’s what we are working on right now and it’s one of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on to date. Audrey and I and two wonderful Beyond Chocolaters (whom I shan’t name just now as I haven’t checked with them before writing this post - though you’ll know who they are soon enough) have been meeting regularly to create a play/show/performance - not quite sure what to call it at the moment - called The Overeating Monologues, to celebrate the launch of our new book, Beyond Temptation.
I have never done anything like this before, so I am incredibly grateful that the others are experienced in theatre and play writing. If the final performance is anything like our writing meetings there will be much laughter and just as much sighing and pause for thought.
I feel so sad that we put ourselves through hell, daily, about the way we look and the size of our bodies. And that the impact of our desperation for a body that says “I am acceptable, I am lovable, I am in control, I am successful” means that we mess with our eating to such an extent that it can become the most shameful and secretive part of our lives. And then we get caught up in a sticky web of vicious self hatred or equally destructive self pity.
I want to live in a world where women (and men) are not judged by the size of their bodies, the make of their clothes, the size of their salary... I want to live a life free from the obsession with food and nutrition. The Beyond Chocolate principles have literally saved me from a life of endless dieting and misery. Had I not stopped dieting all those years ago, I dread to think what my life would be like today. I want to shout out to the world that I will not collude with it’s prejudice towards women who overeat, whatever their size. Overeating is not a disease, it is not a sin, it is not a horrible, shameful indication of how out of control we are, it is simply a coping mechanism, a way to self soothe, a way to treat ourselves or a result of a complex biological and hormonal process that I understand far too little about (and am interested in learning more about).
The Overeating Monologues will give women a voice. If you are interested in taking part in any way (on stage, back stage, in any other capacity - or even if you’d just like to come and see the show in the autumn) we’d love to hear from you. We'll let you know the exact date (sometime in November) and venue in London as soon as we have these confirmed. In the meantime... watch this space!
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Beyond Temptation?
Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
I recently attended Sophie and Audrey Boss’s first ‘Beyond Temptation’ workshop and can recommend it 100% - it will definitely help those of you who have been working with Beyond Chocolate for a while to move up to the next level. It will also serve as a good introduction to anyone who is looking for a new way forward that takes them away from self-destructive over-eating and dieting.
Before I say anything else, I would like to thank those ladies on the course who told me they read and enjoyed my blogs – I was very humbled and pleased to know that what I write is helping other people – I write very much to help myself process things I’m learning about myself and about being a Beyond Chocolater and it’s great to know that other women find that helpful with their own practice.
I loved being on the workshop; it was a very safe space with very lovely women all speaking the Beyond Chocolate language of non-dieting and managing food and our eating in a more caring and productive way. Every woman on that course was truly inspiring, truly beautiful in her own right and I hope they all got as much out of the day as I did.
So – am I now beyond all temptation? Can I walk past a bakery without being sucked in as if by some horizontal Charybdis? Do I turn my nose up at buffets? Am I eating only salads and ‘healthy foods’? Am I getting my five-a-day? Am I exercising religiously? Do I follow all the Beyond Chocolate principles to the letter? Would you hate me if I said ‘yes’ to any or all of those?!
Because actually the answer is ‘of course not’! That’s not what I want for my life. I love bakeries, buffets and salads – I don’t want to be beyond some of them and grimly champing my way through others because they’re ‘good for me’ … after all, if nothing else, the goal-posts on what’s ‘good for us’ changes almost daily.
I want to be able to eat cake when I want cake. The difference now is that I know when I’m hungry for cake and when, actually, I really do want the freshness and crunch of a salad, or a crusty French stick, or the soothing smoothness of home-made soup, or the rich meltiness of Cadbury’s Giant Buttons.
One thing the Beyond Temptation day reminded me was of the importance of finding out about myself, my appetite, my needs and desires. If I don’t know what I want, it’s likely I’ll eat something that’s available and if it doesn’t satisfy, I’ll eat something else and something else until I’m either so stuffed I can’t possible eat any more, or until I hit something that is satisfying. Eating by trial and error is very much part of learning how to utilise the Beyond Chocolate principles in my life.
So, I will be practicing Tuning In for a while. It’s easy, cheap (!), quick and virtually undetectable. At least it will be once I can do without closing my eyes and muttering to myself … The more I Tune In, the more I will find out about myself, the more likely I am to be able to spot more exactly what I want to eat, how much and when. And when it all matches and I don’t over-eat, boy does it feel good! And that feeling acts as a spur to me to do it again and again.
So, as I said, I don’t want to be beyond all temptation, but I do want to be in control more often than not – and I also want, on occasion to dive headfirst into a very large, very sticky cake! Hooray for Beyond Chocolate!
I recently attended Sophie and Audrey Boss’s first ‘Beyond Temptation’ workshop and can recommend it 100% - it will definitely help those of you who have been working with Beyond Chocolate for a while to move up to the next level. It will also serve as a good introduction to anyone who is looking for a new way forward that takes them away from self-destructive over-eating and dieting.
Before I say anything else, I would like to thank those ladies on the course who told me they read and enjoyed my blogs – I was very humbled and pleased to know that what I write is helping other people – I write very much to help myself process things I’m learning about myself and about being a Beyond Chocolater and it’s great to know that other women find that helpful with their own practice.
I loved being on the workshop; it was a very safe space with very lovely women all speaking the Beyond Chocolate language of non-dieting and managing food and our eating in a more caring and productive way. Every woman on that course was truly inspiring, truly beautiful in her own right and I hope they all got as much out of the day as I did.
So – am I now beyond all temptation? Can I walk past a bakery without being sucked in as if by some horizontal Charybdis? Do I turn my nose up at buffets? Am I eating only salads and ‘healthy foods’? Am I getting my five-a-day? Am I exercising religiously? Do I follow all the Beyond Chocolate principles to the letter? Would you hate me if I said ‘yes’ to any or all of those?!
Because actually the answer is ‘of course not’! That’s not what I want for my life. I love bakeries, buffets and salads – I don’t want to be beyond some of them and grimly champing my way through others because they’re ‘good for me’ … after all, if nothing else, the goal-posts on what’s ‘good for us’ changes almost daily.
I want to be able to eat cake when I want cake. The difference now is that I know when I’m hungry for cake and when, actually, I really do want the freshness and crunch of a salad, or a crusty French stick, or the soothing smoothness of home-made soup, or the rich meltiness of Cadbury’s Giant Buttons.
One thing the Beyond Temptation day reminded me was of the importance of finding out about myself, my appetite, my needs and desires. If I don’t know what I want, it’s likely I’ll eat something that’s available and if it doesn’t satisfy, I’ll eat something else and something else until I’m either so stuffed I can’t possible eat any more, or until I hit something that is satisfying. Eating by trial and error is very much part of learning how to utilise the Beyond Chocolate principles in my life.
So, I will be practicing Tuning In for a while. It’s easy, cheap (!), quick and virtually undetectable. At least it will be once I can do without closing my eyes and muttering to myself … The more I Tune In, the more I will find out about myself, the more likely I am to be able to spot more exactly what I want to eat, how much and when. And when it all matches and I don’t over-eat, boy does it feel good! And that feeling acts as a spur to me to do it again and again.
So, as I said, I don’t want to be beyond all temptation, but I do want to be in control more often than not – and I also want, on occasion to dive headfirst into a very large, very sticky cake! Hooray for Beyond Chocolate!
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Lighten the Load
Do you have any idea just how many women overeat? Not just a little bit every now and then but the kind of overeating that we feel ashamed of, that we hide from our friends, colleagues and family. The kind of overeating that we would be mortified if anyone found out about. The overeating that we think is disgusting, out of control, crazy… So many women do it. The most damaging thing about it is the guilt and the shame that we carry around with us like a heavy rucksack on our backs. What makes overeating so painful, so agonising, is the way we torture ourselves about it. And it’s the secrecy that perpetuates the shame and the pain.
Have you ever talked about your overeating? Or is it a secret? Have you ever talked about you overeating with your mates, your mum, your sister or your partner? Do you mention it at all? Maybe you make light of it, pass it off as an inconsequence, allude to it without going into detail about how you really feel, or maybe you avoid talking about it altogether. Do you talk about what it’s really like to be desperate to lose weight or how you feel about your body? Mostly we stay silent, we hide, we keep the secret. We don’t talk about overeating. The idea of telling anyone is horrifying.
In fact, if we are willing to talk about it, we can lighten the load. By being honest, with others and with ourselves, by not hiding and guarding our overeating as a secret, we make it more ordinary and less dramatic. Barely a decade ago no one would have admitted to feeling depressed. Today there's so much less shame about it than there used to be and so much more understanding and compassion. How would it be to tell someone about your overeating? Someone you trust. You don't have to tell them everything. It doesn't have to be a big confession, it's about taking one small step towards telling it as it really is rather than colluding with womankind about how pathetic we are, how all we need is a bit more willpower, an ounce more self control. When we can talk about it, about what it's really like, even just a little bit, we start to dispel the taboo and we feel lighter, freer and better about ourselves. And in talking and breaking the silence, we give others permission to do the same.
You don't have to carry the guilt, shame, embarrassment (whatever it's like for you) around with you all the time. Join us for the Beyond Temptation Workshop on 3rd March and lighten the load. Meet like minded women, have an eye opening, enlightening, memorable day - one which will show you how to transform you life with food so that you feel normal and in control around food.
Have you ever talked about your overeating? Or is it a secret? Have you ever talked about you overeating with your mates, your mum, your sister or your partner? Do you mention it at all? Maybe you make light of it, pass it off as an inconsequence, allude to it without going into detail about how you really feel, or maybe you avoid talking about it altogether. Do you talk about what it’s really like to be desperate to lose weight or how you feel about your body? Mostly we stay silent, we hide, we keep the secret. We don’t talk about overeating. The idea of telling anyone is horrifying.
In fact, if we are willing to talk about it, we can lighten the load. By being honest, with others and with ourselves, by not hiding and guarding our overeating as a secret, we make it more ordinary and less dramatic. Barely a decade ago no one would have admitted to feeling depressed. Today there's so much less shame about it than there used to be and so much more understanding and compassion. How would it be to tell someone about your overeating? Someone you trust. You don't have to tell them everything. It doesn't have to be a big confession, it's about taking one small step towards telling it as it really is rather than colluding with womankind about how pathetic we are, how all we need is a bit more willpower, an ounce more self control. When we can talk about it, about what it's really like, even just a little bit, we start to dispel the taboo and we feel lighter, freer and better about ourselves. And in talking and breaking the silence, we give others permission to do the same.
You don't have to carry the guilt, shame, embarrassment (whatever it's like for you) around with you all the time. Join us for the Beyond Temptation Workshop on 3rd March and lighten the load. Meet like minded women, have an eye opening, enlightening, memorable day - one which will show you how to transform you life with food so that you feel normal and in control around food.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Why everything you have tried in the past hasn't worked and why Beyond Temptation will
Virtually every conventional approach deals with overeating in one of two ways.
THE JUST STOP IT APPROACH
The dieting industry’s favourite answer to overeating is simply to tell you to STOP IT! You know it’s bad for you. You know it’s why you’re overweight, you’ll feel better if you don’t... so just stop it. Summon every ounce of willpower or determination or whatever it takes to resist the urge and control yourself. If you want to lose weight badly enough, then you’ll do it, right?
THE OVEREAT, BUT ONLY ON FREE FOODS APPROACH
Some programmes incorporate overeating as part of their solution. The alternative to eating too many chocolate bars is to overeat as much as you like as long as you choose foods that they say are not fattening. They suggest you turn to low calorie, low fat, low carb foods (or whatever isn’t on their forbidden list) or fill yourself up with low calorie drinks. Binge on carrot sticks or celery, stuff yourself with ‘free’ soup, cram in as much cucumber or spinach as you like, nibble on rice cakes all day if it helps or pick at lettuce leaves and sunflower seeds in an attempt to satiate the insatiable. Some of these programmes positively encourage overeating with days when you can ‘eat as much as you like’ as long as you stick to certain foods. They go as far as to exhort you to ‘pile your plate’ with as much as you want.
None of them address the question of why we overeat and how we can stop. Not just for the few weeks or months but for good. Relying on willpower or simply replacing overeating chocolate with overeating carrots is not the answer. The sad reality is that the diets pave the way to overeating. Whatever diet we choose, we spend so much time depriving ourselves of the food we really want that as soon as we give up dieting, we’re eating for Britain... overeating all those off limits goodies, taking the brakes off... until the next diet.
THE BEYOND TEMPTATION APPROACH
In our first book, Beyond Chocolate, we wrote about own experience as two women who had struggled with our weight for years. We shared our personal stories and described how we transformed our relationship with food and our bodies. It’s six years since we wrote Beyond Chocolate and we haven’t stopped exploring and experimenting for a minute. We certainly have not stood still, happy in the knowledge that we’d cracked it! The 10 principles are the basis of a healthy and balanced relationship with food. As we say in the book, we didn’t invent them (well, the ‘Be your own guru’ principle is unique to Beyond Chocolate) we simply took age-old, common sense ideas and made them accessible. And since then we’ve been looking at overeating in depth, we’ve questioned and investigated. We’ve watched all our wonderful participants grappling and experimenting and out of their work and ours has emerged a process, a way of engaging with the part of us that is driven to overeat, the part of us that turns to food for comfort, or sweetness or distraction or just because it’s there, the part of us that falls into the trap over and over again, despite our very best intentions, despite everything we know. We have created a process which is not only unique and effective but which teaches us so much about ourselves and our overeating that we believe it enriches every part if our lives.
We have been diving into the subject of overeating day after day, we have put it under the microscope and observed it, we’ve worked with it and we’ve carried out experiments (on ourselves!). We know more about overeating than we could ever have imagined was possible to know. And we’ve poured all of that knowledge and understanding into our new book and our new Beyond Temptation Workshop.
The aim of both the book and the workshop is to guide you to stop overeating and discover how to live your life without turning to food, any food, as a treat, a salve or an escape. The way to stop is to identify the reasons you overeat and then deal with them, with a set of practical, effective tools.
Join us on March 3rd, we'll be taking you on an overeating tour and by the end of it you will have all the information, insights, experience and tools you need to have a relationship with food which feels balanced, healthy and free. See you there!
THE JUST STOP IT APPROACH
The dieting industry’s favourite answer to overeating is simply to tell you to STOP IT! You know it’s bad for you. You know it’s why you’re overweight, you’ll feel better if you don’t... so just stop it. Summon every ounce of willpower or determination or whatever it takes to resist the urge and control yourself. If you want to lose weight badly enough, then you’ll do it, right?
THE OVEREAT, BUT ONLY ON FREE FOODS APPROACH
Some programmes incorporate overeating as part of their solution. The alternative to eating too many chocolate bars is to overeat as much as you like as long as you choose foods that they say are not fattening. They suggest you turn to low calorie, low fat, low carb foods (or whatever isn’t on their forbidden list) or fill yourself up with low calorie drinks. Binge on carrot sticks or celery, stuff yourself with ‘free’ soup, cram in as much cucumber or spinach as you like, nibble on rice cakes all day if it helps or pick at lettuce leaves and sunflower seeds in an attempt to satiate the insatiable. Some of these programmes positively encourage overeating with days when you can ‘eat as much as you like’ as long as you stick to certain foods. They go as far as to exhort you to ‘pile your plate’ with as much as you want.
None of them address the question of why we overeat and how we can stop. Not just for the few weeks or months but for good. Relying on willpower or simply replacing overeating chocolate with overeating carrots is not the answer. The sad reality is that the diets pave the way to overeating. Whatever diet we choose, we spend so much time depriving ourselves of the food we really want that as soon as we give up dieting, we’re eating for Britain... overeating all those off limits goodies, taking the brakes off... until the next diet.
THE BEYOND TEMPTATION APPROACH
In our first book, Beyond Chocolate, we wrote about own experience as two women who had struggled with our weight for years. We shared our personal stories and described how we transformed our relationship with food and our bodies. It’s six years since we wrote Beyond Chocolate and we haven’t stopped exploring and experimenting for a minute. We certainly have not stood still, happy in the knowledge that we’d cracked it! The 10 principles are the basis of a healthy and balanced relationship with food. As we say in the book, we didn’t invent them (well, the ‘Be your own guru’ principle is unique to Beyond Chocolate) we simply took age-old, common sense ideas and made them accessible. And since then we’ve been looking at overeating in depth, we’ve questioned and investigated. We’ve watched all our wonderful participants grappling and experimenting and out of their work and ours has emerged a process, a way of engaging with the part of us that is driven to overeat, the part of us that turns to food for comfort, or sweetness or distraction or just because it’s there, the part of us that falls into the trap over and over again, despite our very best intentions, despite everything we know. We have created a process which is not only unique and effective but which teaches us so much about ourselves and our overeating that we believe it enriches every part if our lives.
We have been diving into the subject of overeating day after day, we have put it under the microscope and observed it, we’ve worked with it and we’ve carried out experiments (on ourselves!). We know more about overeating than we could ever have imagined was possible to know. And we’ve poured all of that knowledge and understanding into our new book and our new Beyond Temptation Workshop.
The aim of both the book and the workshop is to guide you to stop overeating and discover how to live your life without turning to food, any food, as a treat, a salve or an escape. The way to stop is to identify the reasons you overeat and then deal with them, with a set of practical, effective tools.
Join us on March 3rd, we'll be taking you on an overeating tour and by the end of it you will have all the information, insights, experience and tools you need to have a relationship with food which feels balanced, healthy and free. See you there!
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
In denial or in control?
Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
Something happened the other day which gave me pause. My other half said he thought I was in denial about chocolate as I had lots in stashes around the house.
After all the miserable dieting years, just when I thought I’d reached the calm tranquil waters of a life Beyond Chocolate, this bombshell fell.
So I have been thinking about what he said. Am I kidding myself? Am I still in thrall to chocolate? Does it still wield mysterious and subliminal power over me? Is the fact that I have lots of chocolate in the house proof that I still need it and that I’m not ‘over’ it yet?
Probably yes and no; but more no than yes. I am maintaining my chocolate stocks because I want to be sure that I have finally got to the point where I can take it or leave it. I want to be assured that chocolate is there if I need it or want it, but that I won’t eat it randomly, unconsciously, voraciously until I feel sick and disgusted with myself any more. I am still, I guess, ‘testing’ myself. What happens when I’m bored? Do I start working my way through my chocolate collection? What happens when I’m angry, or sad or madly happy? What happens when I’m just feeling a bit dull and lack-lustre or so tired that I can’t cook? What happens when things go wrong? What happens when someone offers me chocolate?
This curiosity about myself is something that Beyond Chocolate has taught me to value. It’s not a tool I would ever be offered on a diet programme. Knowing what I do, when and how is a far more valuable weapon in the on-going war on over-eating than any of the advice given out by any of the diet clubs. And I feel more powerful the more I know about myself and how I react to external stimuli and the more often I make a conscious choice about what I do in response to stimuli.
I suspect I will be maintaining my chocolate stocks for a while longer yet. Although I know I no longer automatically turn to chocolate to help me deal with many of life’s problems, I do still want to have the option of eating chocolate when I want to. And there’s no point in only having ‘virtuous’ high cocoa content dark chocolate in the house (which was one of my other half’s suggestions) if what I really want is milk chocolate with peanuts, or biscuity bits or caramel. So I need to keep a variety of chocolate in the house to cover as many eventualities as I can.
I don’t think I’m deluding myself here, nor do I think I’m in denial – what I think is happening is that I am very clear about what I am doing and why and that doing this is helping me. And I no longer hide chocolate around the house – the ‘stashes’ my other half referred to consist of one glass jar on the shelf above my desk and one drawer with chocolate in the kitchen.
I have explained Beyond Chocolate several times to my other half and he has always seemed to understand and has always been supportive. But it seems the messages from the diet industry and the government are running very deep indeed and that the constant drip drip drip effect of their advice reaches even into securely Beyond Chocolate households. I think I’ll sit him down with a cup of tea and some chocolate and talk about it again ...
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
The Pause
Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
I’ve just come back from a week’s retreat at a women’s Buddhist centre on the Welsh border. The retreat was focussed on meditation and the development of ‘metta’ for ourselves and for other people. For anyone familiar with all this – just tune out now and tune back in a bit later. For anyone not familiar with this, I’ll explain briefly. Metta is roughly translated as ‘loving kindness’ and the idea of the Metta Bhavana meditation is to practice feeling this towards ourselves and towards other people. That’s a simplistic explanation, but it will do for now.
The point I’m working towards is that much of the discussion on the retreat could equally have taken place on a Beyond Chocolate workshop. I was astonished by the similarities in what I was hearing. For anyone who is a strong adherent of any other religious practice – don’t worry – I’m not out to make converts to Buddhism and I’m sure that Beyond Chocolate fits equally well into your religious beliefs or no religious beliefs at all – this is just my personal experience of a Buddhist retreat.
As all the participants were women, that was one immediate similarity. One immediate difference was that they weren’t there primarily because they were struggling with their relationship with food and their bodies – in fact it was lovely to bake a large rich chocolate cake for a group of women who WEREN’T dieting! However, some of the advice being given to women struggling to achieve a feeling of ‘metta’ towards themselves was very similar to the advice Beyond Chocolate offers to women struggling with their own self-esteem and their own eating and bodies.
In fact, without ‘metta’ for ourselves, without viewing ourselves with ‘loving kindness’ it can be difficult to make changes to the way we feel about ourselves and our relationship with food. Viewing ourselves with loving kindness AND curiosity can help us to being to work through any problems we are having with food and our own bodies.
One of the tenets of Buddhism is that life equals suffering. We can’t help suffering because we are alive. If that sounds rather bleak, it’s not meant to be – it’s actually true. Some of it is self-inflicted; some is inflicted on us by others. It’s our reaction to that suffering that was being discussed on the retreat. What can happen when we encounter suffering is that we either block the feelings or we ignore them. But the feelings are still there, they haven’t gone away and they will re-surface. When they do, we deal with them in many different ways, but the one that caught my attention was dealing with the pain by using food to squash it down.
And one of the ways we can short-circuit that process was remarkably similar to one of the methods we can use with Beyond Chocolate. We pause. In between the suffering and our reaction to it is a brief space which we can use to pause and decide how we want to manage or deal with this suffering. With Beyond Chocolate we have a moment between the urge to eat when we know we’re not hungry and we can use that moment to decide whether to deal with what’s urging us to eat by eating or by deciding not to.
Either way, we have the power to short-circuit suffering by using this very powerful pause and by making a decision, rather than being driven by our feelings into doing something that won’t help us in the long run.
I’ve just come back from a week’s retreat at a women’s Buddhist centre on the Welsh border. The retreat was focussed on meditation and the development of ‘metta’ for ourselves and for other people. For anyone familiar with all this – just tune out now and tune back in a bit later. For anyone not familiar with this, I’ll explain briefly. Metta is roughly translated as ‘loving kindness’ and the idea of the Metta Bhavana meditation is to practice feeling this towards ourselves and towards other people. That’s a simplistic explanation, but it will do for now.
The point I’m working towards is that much of the discussion on the retreat could equally have taken place on a Beyond Chocolate workshop. I was astonished by the similarities in what I was hearing. For anyone who is a strong adherent of any other religious practice – don’t worry – I’m not out to make converts to Buddhism and I’m sure that Beyond Chocolate fits equally well into your religious beliefs or no religious beliefs at all – this is just my personal experience of a Buddhist retreat.
As all the participants were women, that was one immediate similarity. One immediate difference was that they weren’t there primarily because they were struggling with their relationship with food and their bodies – in fact it was lovely to bake a large rich chocolate cake for a group of women who WEREN’T dieting! However, some of the advice being given to women struggling to achieve a feeling of ‘metta’ towards themselves was very similar to the advice Beyond Chocolate offers to women struggling with their own self-esteem and their own eating and bodies.
In fact, without ‘metta’ for ourselves, without viewing ourselves with ‘loving kindness’ it can be difficult to make changes to the way we feel about ourselves and our relationship with food. Viewing ourselves with loving kindness AND curiosity can help us to being to work through any problems we are having with food and our own bodies.
One of the tenets of Buddhism is that life equals suffering. We can’t help suffering because we are alive. If that sounds rather bleak, it’s not meant to be – it’s actually true. Some of it is self-inflicted; some is inflicted on us by others. It’s our reaction to that suffering that was being discussed on the retreat. What can happen when we encounter suffering is that we either block the feelings or we ignore them. But the feelings are still there, they haven’t gone away and they will re-surface. When they do, we deal with them in many different ways, but the one that caught my attention was dealing with the pain by using food to squash it down.
And one of the ways we can short-circuit that process was remarkably similar to one of the methods we can use with Beyond Chocolate. We pause. In between the suffering and our reaction to it is a brief space which we can use to pause and decide how we want to manage or deal with this suffering. With Beyond Chocolate we have a moment between the urge to eat when we know we’re not hungry and we can use that moment to decide whether to deal with what’s urging us to eat by eating or by deciding not to.
Either way, we have the power to short-circuit suffering by using this very powerful pause and by making a decision, rather than being driven by our feelings into doing something that won’t help us in the long run.
Friday, 16 September 2011
Writing and Rum Baba
I'm in heaven. Audrey and I have come to my favourite place in the world to complete the first draft of Beyond Temptation. At this moment in time I feel like the luckiestwoman alive. Every day I wake up to blue skies and sunshine, I can have a dip in the pool or a walk along the coast. I have a coffe and the lighest broche I've ever tasted and then I sit down with my sister (and best friend) to write about what I am most passionate about; women and their relationship with food and their bodies.
I can't describe just how much fun the process of writing is. I sit propped up on a comfy couch (overlooking the pool) with the laptop, Audrey lies on the other couch, feet up and we write all day and all evening and into the early hours of the morning. We debate each sentence, argue, grapple, get stuck, keep talking. Oh, and we laugh and laugh. Last night while we were writing about overeating triggers, we just seemed to find everything hilarious. We laughed so hard our sides hurt and we had tears running down our cheeks. It was two o'clock in the morning and I hope we didn't disturb the people in the apartment next door! Writing this book is so satisfying and exciting. We're really getting to the nub of overeating and it feels so empowering to be putting into words the work we've been doing both personally and professionally for the past few years.
Last night, after writing for several hours we headed up to Ostuni (the little white washed town on the hill) for our favourite dinner - a panzerotto. A panzertto is a sort of pizza with mozzarella and tomato inside, folded in half and deep fried in oil. It is light and crisp and absolutely divine. I hope that it's the last thing I ever eat. I've been eating panzerotti made by the two Torino sisters since I was 8 years old. After our panzerotti we went up to Ciccio's the ice-cream bar. Audrey didn't fancy ice-cream and had her heart set on a Rum Baba and to her dismay when we got there they'd run out of the little individual ones. She had a taster of pistachio ice cream and some almond one... but nothing hit the spot. She really wanted Rum Baba. They did have one, a rather large 8 portion beauty for £18, but nothing smaller. She sat there with me as I ate my ice-cream looking miserable, consoling herself with the thought of coming back tomorrow when they'd have a small one. And then I thought, why not just the buy the big one? So it's £18 but we'd only spent £5 so far on dinner and Mrs Ciccio had told Audrey it would freeze perfectly. "Get it" I suggested, "Why not?". Her face lit up like a child's! She was up like a shot and came back with a huge box holding her treasure. When we got back to La Rascina she had to wait an hour or so for it to de-frost and when she finally took her first bite she was transported into Rhum Baba heaven... it was the lightest, fluffiest, most delicately flavoured Baba ever, with sweet whipped cream and cherries on top... her huge grin and moans of delight were worth every pound. Giving ourselves what we want is so good for us, even when we tell ourselves it's indulgent or unnecessary. I am sure that our writing was more productive and fun for it. She was happy and satisfied and relaxed... all thanks to the Rum Baba but most importantly because she didn't shy away from giving herself what she wanted and satisfying her desire.
More writing today - we're aiming to complete three chapters on tuning-in to feelings, thoughts and BodyTalk... a chapter for each, a lot of detail... my heart flutters at the thought, spending the day doing something I love is just so wonderful, I am a very lucky woman indeed.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
No Diet Day and Our new book
It's International No Diet Day on May 6th 2012 and we are planning to celebrate. This is rather a long way off but the reason I’m writing about it now is that we would love your ideas, creativity and support to make it a really amazing celebration. Bear with me… I’ll explain.Next year, in 2012, the celebrations will be two-fold. As with every year, I will personally be celebrating yet another diet free year. That's coming up for 13 years!! And that is a major celebration for me every single year. When I look back I just cannot imagine what my life would be like today if I were still clinging on to WW meetings or spending my hard earned income on diet books, dietitians, naturopaths, personal trainers, vegetable steamers... and all the myriad of things I wasted my money on for such a long time. Really, I have to think long and hard to remember the desperation, the feeling of hopelessness (and the feelings of desperate hope... that maybe this one would be the one...!) the sense of utter powerlessness, the obsession of it all... So, on May 6th, I will be raising my glass (hopefully full of something deliciously bubbly) yet again to NO DIET DAY - to freeing women from the tyranny, and frankly the con, of dieting.
And this coming year, NO DIET DAY 2012 - we’ll have something extra special to celebrate. We’re launching our new book - Beyond Temptation - which will be published on May 3rd. NO DIET DAY is on May 6th. And that’s where you come in. We would love to plan an event or a series of events around that time to celebrate both NO DIET DAY and the launch of our new book. I’m sure there are lots of possibilities and at the moment we are a bit stumped! Here are some of the ideas we’ve been playing with:
A big celebratory picnic in a park in London - but the thing is we’d rather not be so London-centric as it excludes so many Beyond Chocolaters.
A series of local picnics arranged by Beyond Chocolaters - which dilutes things a bit but is more inclusive.
A flash mob in London somewhere or a series of co-ordinated flash mobs in various parts of the UK - which I love the idea of as it gets people talking about NO DIET DAY and beginning to question what it’s all about...
That’s about it so far...
So we’d love your ideas and thoughts, whatever they are. When you you think the best day to celebrate might be? Is the fact that it’s a Bank Holiday weekend a problem? Would it be better to do it the weekend after? Or is the Bank Holiday an advantage? All you thoughts and suggestions are very welcome. Thank you.
Monday, 18 July 2011
Beyond Temptation?
When the only way we know how to cope with the unpleasant moments is to eat a cookie (or 10 or 20...), when we have no other options, when nothing else feels possible... we can feel powerless, hopeless, crazy...
When we know that eating a cookie... or as many cookies as we want, is one option among many... When we know that we can manage every moment in life without food if we want to... then sometimes eating the cookie(s) may be the way we choose.. without guilt... without beating ourselves up, without feeling out of control... without needing to eat the whole packet and the one next to it in the cupboard... and then the crisps and cheese and pizza and coke and anything else we can get our hands on... without feeling the need to make up for it the next day by being good or eating less, or exercising that bit harder.
When we know how to have a balanced relationship with food... when we have choices and strategies and support... we are in charge!
When we can say NO to the cookie NOT because we think it's fattening so we ought to avoid it, NOT because we summon every ounce of willpower, NOT because we tell ourselves we're stupid or weak or crazy or pathetic or greedy for eating cookies when we should just pull ourselves together, but because we consider all the options available to us and (the vast majority of the time) eating cookies just isn't the most satisfying one...
Then we are truly in the moment, truly empowered, truly Beyond Temptation, for ever!!
Can't wait to publish this book - we're nearly there.
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